


the game

by WonderTwinC



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 14:36:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderTwinC/pseuds/WonderTwinC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina knows better than to come to Rumpelstiltskin without an ace up her sleeve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the game

**Author's Note:**

> Taken from the scene of episode 1x21. This follows the other two Regina based ficlets but you don't have to read one to understand the other.

She never comes to him unprepared. After years of dallying with him, knowing him and hating him, perhaps even admiring him all in the same breath, Regina knows better than to come to Rumpelstiltskin without an ace up her sleeve. She’s had that poor girl of his locked from sunlight for more than just twenty eight years, so much longer that she can’t honestly remember when, but she’s had her all this time just to make sure he didn’t. Perhaps she’s finally found a use for the wretch of a thing, a bargaining chip, a way to keep the curse and Henry and maybe even shatter this half-man before her.

 

“I’ll give you anything,” she turns and twists her voice, playing on the years her mother twisted her, the work King Leopold did to her with his hands. Regina knows how to sound desperate for a mark, _for him_ , and she plays it like she hasn’t in years, just enough to hook him but maybe not all that is needed to reel him in.

 

She is not surprised when he turns, all mocking and condescending, his voice low and predatory, “Oh, you no longer have anything that I want, dearie,” his lips twist and Regina can see the imp in him, the Dark one lingering behind his brown eyes, flaring as he taunts her with this small play of power. She makes herself look torn, not upset and not crushed, but just a little heart broken and sad, enough that his interest is still in twisting his metaphorical dagger in her chest, “But I will give you a piece of advice, free of charge. I’d plan a trip of your own. Because, once people waken up and remember who you are and what you did to them…”

 

Gold chuckles, dark and smooth, poison laced enjoyment as he turns back to his ledger and his globe, turning his back on her (not for the first time), “They are going to be looking for blood.”

 

Regina watches him spin his globe, the way his fingers trail over the smooth surface. She remembers that he had a map back at the Dark Castle that he loved to play with; even now she can see his dark claws tapping along the different kingdoms, glee written in every line of his face. She can’t see him now, doesn’t even care too, because then he might see that beyond the pained look of her features there is a glint in her eyes that she can’t quite suppress.

 

He thinks she has nothing; that she is washed up and more than ready to be shipped out to sea for her sins, but the ace she holds is so much more than an ace.

 

If they were playing a game of chess it would be his Queen she has, locked in the lowest of dungeons.

 

_Everything his still beating heart yet desires._


End file.
